on being nice out of fear…

I regretted rolling down my window….but it was a beautiful day, and I was desperate for fresh air…but, I was afraid to make eye contact, since I hate to say No to a bum.

I swept my eyes past him, and kept my attention in the other direction. … hoping the light would change soon, hoping he would not call out.

Then it started… he walked toward my car, calling out …. I froze, hoping he wasn’t calling out to me…. He kept calling… so I had to turn his way…. He was trying to get my attention, so that I wouldn’t run over him, when he passed the front of my car, on the crosswalk.

He was waving frantically with a big smile, saying… I am walking here…don’t hit me…big smile plastered on his face…. Then, after the message was delivered, his amiable smile, turn to wrath, scorn, hate, derision, disgust… his true feelings about the encounter revealed… I was trash to him.  It wasn’t a human to human moment, but, an obligatory nuisance thing he had to do, to keep from being hit, by me making a right on red turn.  He was afraid of ME.

It was just that his face flipped from customer service smile-smile, to sickening scorn of me, right in front of my face, before he even crossed the front of my car… like he wanted me to know I disgusted him.

On a totally different subject then…Later that day, I was on the phone, being routed thru call centers, with impossibly solicitous people reading from their scripts.  I respect them for showing up at work, and doing their jobs… but, I also know I am being handled… worked… if they go off script, or reveal a mistake on the taped phone call…it could cost them their job, the job reference, and their income, and from that, their house breaks up, from the failure to keep a job, and the family is destroyed….  Ok, the pressure is ON.

I get handled.. and I try to humanize it just a micro amount, and ask what city they are in… for small talk about the weather, or whatever I can think of so that they don’t think I think they are robots..

As we do our hang-up routine, “is there ANYthing else I can help you with” because they are obliged to end the call this way.. and I say no.. and she gives me her name, much clearer now, first and last…. My clue to call her company, and say what a nice call this was….and I feel like the bum on the street, that went from fake smiley face, to derision… at being forced into this fake encounter with a stranger…so that I call her boss, and say what a nice call this was…

What kind of fake society have we become?  All of us being nice out of fear…

Where you from?

My daughter was waiting at the Boston Airport for a bus when a handsome young man noticed her.  After a little chat he said, “You talk about Texas.  What part are you from?”

     She hesitated.  “You wouldn’t know.”

     “Try me,” he said.  “I used to live in Austin.”

     “Well, do you know Midland/Odessa?”

      “…No.”

     “Then you definitely won’t know where I’m from.  If you ever saw a John Wayne movie, you’d get the idea.”

     So that’s what I gave my daughters:  a home on the range – where the skunks and the feral hogs roam.    It takes a sharp eye to see the hidden beauty of west Texas, but, oh, you can breathe.

    I like what guys talk about around a campfire.  And I like the smell of rain.  Out here, it’s an event.  Even the frogs come out of the ground to sing to the rumble of a passing storm.  Early in the morning, the moist spider webs in the field fence catches the light and shows a different design in the wire squares.  It’s like looking at a secret art gallery –only to disappear with the rising sun.  

      Just when I think I can’t stand the heat, the dust and the flies any longer, I think of my Harold, who goes to work in jeans, eats from a lunch box and brings wild flowers to me in the evenings.

     I wasn’t born in Texas, but I came as soon as I could.    

 

The Priests Graveyard

The Priests Graveyard….

We found it.  It was the tallest monument in St. Mary’s Cemetery.

Parish priests were buried around it, like slices of pie.  Each having a 4×8 slab of stone, circling the 20 foot tower.  The stones lie prostrate, as the priests did on ordination, flat on the floor of the church, giving up his life “to Christ”.

We were searching for Father O’Brian.

He was the parish priest that knew our family long before the depression,  baptized our Dad, watched him enter and finished High School, go off to WWII, and in the 1960’s, returned with 7 kids of has own, and had his youngest baptized in the same font, by this same priest.

In this case, Father O’Brian, gave his life to Delaware Ohio.

Back in the 60’s, I remembered him as a short, stooped white or grey hair man, with is red Monsignor hat on, round face, with squinty smiling eyes….everyones friend.

Even now, Just the mention of this old old man’s name around town, brings a smile to the secretaries in the church office, as they recall their own memories… even alluding to his ghost in the church.

Imagine how this one man, influenced the whole community of Delaware, as he attended to their births, deaths, marriages, and drank happily at the  parties he would be invited to. One man, one church, one town, one grave… just saying, one guy influenced a town, made their lives bette, easier, kinder.

New house in Atlanta

1

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one pic is the leaning driveway,

next is the stone wall across the street

then pics of woods out back, and the 3 foot wide creek  at the bottom…mostly no back yard neighbors…

Side view of back porch, and one neighbor next door.

Your bedroom window is on first floor, to the right of Wayne

Kitchen pic was taken from outside looking in.

later
Peg

 

 

new post Dec 20, 2010

test post

Moving Day Sept 15th

Moving Day

Our rented Loft sold on Tuesday Sept. 15th.

For the past 6 weeks, I have been packing.

First the decorations, china, clutter.  Next the easiest was the books (all by category of course) Computer, Surgery, Writing, Clutter, (yes…I have amassed a collection of books on clutter.. what does this mean??) Novels, Biography, Vineyard books,  Only about 30 or 40 boxes. I KNOW I used to have over 300 boxes…so there is improvement…less stuff.

I added up the weight of all our stuff (including refrig, 7 bookcases, bed, dresser, mega heavy Pink couch bed, etc…and came up with 10,000 lbs… 5 tons.

Well, on this moving day, we separated all we needed to survive with for next 2 months (5% of stuff), and let the movers put all the rest in storage in Memphis till we found a place to live in Atlanta.(95% of stuff).

Since it was a flat rate $850, and it was the middle of the week, the mover had lots of extra help, so he send THREE 32-foot trucks, and SIX really strong  guys.  They introduces themselves, ….good Southerners 🙂 ,  and moved all the stuff in about 90 minutes.  So… it is good to move in the middle of the week…

Wayne and I loaded up our stuff in the red truck, and his camery, and drove off to look at the 2BR2Bath apartment we will live in for the next 3 or 4 weeks…till the Job start day happens.